Topics (move over topic to see place in topic list)
01 Religious and ideological doctrines and imagery
05 Scientific knowledge and scholarly lore
05 Scientific knowledge and scholarly lore
05 Scientific knowledge and scholarly lore
Keywords
calendars
Iran
naming
Period
Sasanid Empire
Channel
Iranian culture
Text
The Babylonian astronomical and calendrical ideas were influential throughout Iran and beyond, but only in the Bactrian and Sogdian calendars the first month retained its Babylonian name Nisan, and in Bactrian the third month too was called Siwan (σιοανο). It seems to have been Sogdian Manichaeans who in the eight century CE introduced into China the Mesopotamian notion of the planetary week together with the names of the seven days or planets, including that of Saturn or Saturday, which retained its Semitic name Kēwān. In Pahlavi also the name for the planet Saturn is Kaywān, from Akkadian kajjāmānu “the stable one”. Also the sign of the zodiac Aqarius (Dōl) preserved its Semitic name in Iranian.
Bibliography
Sims-Williams 1996, 77
Sims-Williams, Nicholas. “From Babylon to China. Astrological and Epistolary Formulae across Two Millennia.” In: La Persia e l'Asia centrale da Alessandro al X secolo. Atti dei convegni lincei 127. Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 1996, 77-84.
